Students go into trance after mango tree cut

Dozens of students of Sunari Loka junior high school in Bali’s prominent tourist resort of Kuta went into a trance on Thursday.

A student said the mass trance followed the school management’s decision to cut a mango tree that had marked the school yard for years.

“Probably the mass trance was a result of the tree felling. The tree was quite big and said to be haunted,” the student told kompas.com.

The school principal asked the remaining students to go home to prevent the mass trance from escalating.

Local residents said the incident occurred at 11 a.m. local time. A seventh grade student suddenly shouted without any reason. In a matter of seconds other students followed suit.

Neither the school principal nor teachers would comment on the incident.